PLEASE HELP THIS NEWB! Droid 4+ root running gingerbread 2.3.6

[The_Tactikz]

Hello to all, this is my first post. Yes, I am a newb but have has sat in the back of the classroom observing this forum and various other android forums. I am a big advocate of android, especially the Motorola Droids. I first rooted my droid 1 & 2, then skipped to droid 4 + root for over a year now and used Vodoo OTA Root keeper to prevent the updates, as I was fine with what I had.....until now.

So lets start with that I have a Droid 4 running gingerbread 2.3.6/ System Ver 6.13.219

-Rooted through the droid 4 utility v.03

-Super User & Binary is installed/ updated.

-busybox installed.

-clockworkmod installed, but can not get cwm recovery so I can make a back up. Says"There is no current recovery for droid 4", which I highly doubt is correct.

-Voodo OTA root keeper was recently removed in the attempt to update to ICS/Jellybean.

My goal:
I read the instructions again and again, followed steps to manually install one of the leaked versions of ICS; leading to a fail, just rebooted up and remained as gingerbread.

I then decided I didn't want all the issues the droid 4 is having with ICS & Jellybean. I would just like to at be able to flash between gingerbread and a ROM version of ICS or JB for the purpose of using ARliberator app with AppRadio stereo system (due to ARliberator not being compatible with gingerbread).

Issues I'm having:
-I can not find cwm recovery to work for my droid 4.

-I can not get the latest version of safestrap to install from hash code's site, "problem parsing this package" is what I'm getting after attempting to install.

-can not find a version of the droid 4 utility (ver 1.0) for gingerbread, to try having safestrap installed through the utility. The droid 4 utility version I have, safestrap was removed. From my search and findings all links point to the ICS and JB utilitiy tools and the version I'm looking for has been removed.

Basically I am at a stand still until I can get cwm recovery to work and safestrap installed.

Can anyone please point this newb in the right direction or tell me if I am doing anything incorrect? I've been scratching my brains out for the past 3 days now. Thank you in advanced.

 

[GigaJake]

The fact that you're still running Gingerbread makes you an extremely rare Droid 4 owner. If you plan on installing custom roms I recommend upgrading to Jellybean so you can use the latest Safestrap and 4.2.2 roms and ignore the issues of stock JB. But if you prefer to stay on Gingerbread then go for it. Upgrading is a one way street.

It's true there really isn't a Clockworkmod Recovery for the D4. The "official" custom recovery since the D3 and up has been Safestrap, which is far superior in my opinion.

The reason you can't get safestrap to work is because you're seriously out of date. I'd probably have to give you the earliest version of Safestrap I have to work on your phone, and even then I can't remember if it's Gingerbread compatible. Even if you did get it functioning you'd never find a working rom. All non-kexec roms (if you can find one) are for the ICS kernel. To use kexec roms you'd need to run the latest version of Safestrap, which you can't do on Gingerbread.

You won't find any ICS or JB roms that are compatible with your Gingerbread kernel, so what you're looking to do is simply not possible.

Truthfully, if you want advice: upgrade. Not because it's cliche or i'd rather you upgrade than deal with your question, but there is literally nothing to do with a Gingerbread D4 anymore, the community has moved on. Sorry! Consider using the official JB sbf file to fastboot straight to Jellybean if you decide to go this route.

Sent from my XT894 using Tapatalk 2

 

[The_Tactikz]

GigaJake,

Thank you very much for your insight, plus educating me on my current status regarding gingerbread & safestrap. Much appreciated! It was very helpful for the route decision making, of course I'll be doing more research before I make any jump. I got the idea for from you to jump to jellybean, but would like to hear from other members of the forum about ICS vs. JB:

Thanks to GigaJakes info, I don't see any reason anymore to flash any ROMs. Although I would like to know,

-what have been your experiences between the two, likes and dislikes? (The issues with the qwerty keypad is my biggest concern)

-would you recommend updating to ICS or go all the way to Jellybean and why?

 

[GigaJake]

You can use kexec roms on both ICS and JB, so as far as custom roms go, you'll have access to them all regardless of which you upgrade to. The only real thing you would want to consider when evaluating ICS vs JB would be the stock system.

I'm always using a custom rom (Liquid Smooth currently) and don't spend much time dwindling on my stock system. The qwerty keyboard was a big issue for JB users because it requires you to hold shift instead of just tapping it.

If you intend to use your stock system a lot, consider upgrading to ICS first and seeing if it's what you like. Once you go all the way to JB, you can't go back.

Sent from my XT894 using Tapatalk 2

 

[The_Tactikz]

Thanks again Jake. Yea, I already had researched and knew about not being able to go back to GB if I had updated, thus the reason for trying to see if I could flash between GB and ICS or JB with safestrap.

Well now knowing it is near impossible to do that with GB, I guess I will finally update; I was more leaning towards ICS, but just wanted to hear from you guys (droid 4 users) what the benefits/ cons to ICS vs JB. As I had mentioned before, not really looking to flash any custom ROMs at the moment. I fine with a stock system + root to free wifi tether for work and etc. That is unless you guys could really persuade me otherwise to the strong benefits of a custom ROM(s).

 

[GigaJake]

I know you want a wide variety of opinions so I'll try and shut up after this post so not to be to sole factor in your decision, but to answer your question:

Jellybean isn't a huge change from Ice Cream Sandwich.

ICS Pro's/Con's:
+Better handling with qwerty keyboard (shift & sym key)
+Lacking issues of Jellybean update
+Able to be upgraded if you don't like it
-Older kernel compared to JB
-Missing JB features

JB Pro's/Con's
+New Jellybean features (Google Now, better notification bar, etc)
+Updated kernel
+Less bloatware
-poor keyboard performance
-unable to be downgraded

My recommendation for you is to upgrade to ICS. Someone over at XDA actually made a kexec rom for the Stock D4 Jellybean OTA (meaning you'll even be using the JB kernel). Flashing that rom to a romslot in Safestrap will essentially keep your stock system ICS and be able to switch to JB whenever you want, which is what you indicated you wanted to do. And since all roms are Kexec based, you don't have to update your stock to JB unless you absolutely want to.

D4 Official JB OTA Kexec Rom:
Stock d4 JB via kexec - xda-developers

And of course, I highly recommend investing in a custom rom. Tons of more customizations, no bloatware, essentially vanilla android, Android 4.2.2 based (there are features in 4.2.2 not in 4.1.2 (JB OTA)), all around better experience.